are you my mother?

I've been doing a little jogging lately.  Well, not jogging exactly.  It's more like loping.  I've never been much of a runner.  This is ironic, considering my height and build, but true all the same.  In this season of life however, with 3 little kids who are busy from the moment they wake up until the moment they crash at night, quiet is something of a rare jewel.  So AJ and I have been trading off for 30 minutes a day, getting out and exercising and taking in the quiet sounds at the little nature trail up the street.

It's a good time to pray, listen, and let my mind ramble where it will.  Every once in a while I do get stuck in my rambling, and with school fresh behind me, it sounds a little something like this in my head: "I wonder how much ATP I'm getting from glycolysis right now?  Probably not as much as I'm getting from the beta oxidation of my fatty acids.  Way to go electron transport chain, you are awesome!!"

But these days I have other great things to think about.

I may have mentioned before that Jack doesn't call me anything.  When he needs something, he will yell from the other room.  "HELP!" or "AAAHHHH!" or "NO NO NO NO!" Or when he's not particularly wound up, he'll come and get me with a cute little grin plastered to his face that I can't resist.  "Cheese?  Juice box?  Cracker? Fruit snack?"  But he doesn't call me a name.  It's funny how AJ and I weren't even really consciously aware that was missing until Camille started calling us mommy and daddy.  Of course, we know he knows we're his parents.  He just hasn't figured out what to call us yet.

And then a couple of weeks ago, it happened. AJ was busy in the kitchen when Jack ran in.

Jack: "Help!  Help please!"
AJ: Hold on buddy, just a second.
Jack: "HELP.  HELP PLEASE!"
AJ: Just a second Jack.
Jack: Dad.  HELP.

Just like that. It was music.  Of course I was thrilled he said 'dad', and he's been saying it daily ever since.  But longing now all the more to hear him call me mom.

Fast forward a few weeks.  I have tucked the kids in to bed and I'm cleaning up.  AJ is getting Camille down to sleep in her room.  Then we hear in singsong, from down the hall, "MOMMMMMMY!"  I thought it was Camille.  Then AJ poked his head out of her room, "Did he just say mommy?"  I go into Jack and Livvie's room, and Jack is grinning on the floor (he likes to sleep in his bean bag chair on the floor).  I think he knows he's just done something dramatic.  "Mommy!  Mommy!", he says again.  I'm too shocked to cry, I just smile and say, "Do you need mommy?  What do you need Jack Jack?"  He replies, "Story book." and then goes to get a book from the bookshelf.  It doesn't matter that we've been reading and playing for an hour, and it's now 9 o'clock.  I will stay as long as he wants me to.  And in the most poetic gesture that has ever been made, he hands me one of my favorite books that he's never showed the least bit of interest in:
Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman.

So we read Are You My Mother a few times, he snuggles in to bed and drifts off.  It doesn't hit me until I'm out loping the next morning what mountain-shifting event has just occurred in my heart.  Mommy.  Mommy. The most beautiful word I've ever heard.  This morning it's easy to turn off the ramblings of my busy mind.  I close my eyes and listen to the quiet sounds around me.  The drumming of a woodpecker.  The fanning of leaves in tunnels over my head.  The steady tinkling of the creek.  Everything that is breathing and living and moving.  They're all saying Mommy.

happy birthday jack!

May 2nd, 2008, 11:30 am.  At 5 cm dilated my labor was jump-started with pitocin and at 1:21 pm, a screechy 8 lb 13 oz baby boy was in my arms, pink and perfect.  Just under 2 hours from start to finish.  What a good boy.  I remember feeling...terrible.  Like I needed to throw up and needed to eat and needed a blanket and needed the heat turned down.  I was shaking so badly I had to hand that precious bundle off to dad.

AJ, lit up like the 4th of July: "We have a SON!  You're so cute buddy!  Honey, what do you need?  What can I get you?"

Kim: "Um, drugs?"

AJ (laughing): "I'm on it - be right back!"

"We'll take him down to the nursery, get some measurements and give him a bath", the nurses said. "That happened fast, why don't you rest for a bit and we'll bring him right back!" My post-delivery shock would not allow me to protest.  They wheeled me into a recovery room after a brief visit from Aunt Carrie and gratefully, I crashed for a solid hour.  When I woke up I ooohed and aaahed my way through a dozen phone pictures AJ had sent of Jack in the nursery and texted my reply: "I'm awake and I want my son!! Don't come back from the nursery without him!!" Moments later, in strolled a glowing AJ and his new boy.  Jack buried his not so tiny body in my arms and we've been inseparable ever since.  

As I reflect on the last several years with all their many ups and downs, I'm reminded of Jack's 2nd birthday.  We gathered friends at the park on a cool and windy Saturday.  I remember that he was distant, disinterested in presents, the cake, and the other kids coming and going.  That was two years ago.  We had just been told that it was likely Jack was autistic.  We were at the beginning of our pain that this boy, who was once a happy, bouncing, smiling baby was now a frustrated, inconsolable child, unable to communicate and in a world of his own.  I remember that he kept wanting to run away down the path at the park by himself - no, not by himself, but with me.  And in my culminating worry about his development, I remember that it was a day God "caught" me right where I was and showed me a different and precious perspective.  Here was my healthy, energetic little boy, wanting to steal away with his mom for a run down the path and a soak in the cold creek water.  We laughed and splashed all alone, and I knew the way you know when you're front and center in a moment you will never forget with one of your kids. "You're going to remember this forever," I told myself, "because he won't always want you to scoop him up in your arms and steal him away."  So that day is etched in my memory, and now when I look at this healthy, energetic, smiling, self-appointed "baby sheep" and recently converted "birthday enthusiast", I  close my eyes and say, "Jesus, what a gift.  Thank you."

Happy birthday Jack Jack.  I love you so!

-Mommy sheep